Home at Hartford: Day By Day

February 20 Monday – M.B. Bennett wrote from Cleveland to ask Sam “events of his life” for their club [MTP].

February 20 Friday – En route from Montreal to New York City Sam wrote to Livy. He’d sent a toboggan for the children but cautioned, “They better not try to use it till I come.” He wrote just as the train left the Lake Champlain area.

February 20 Saturday – Thomas Fitch wrote to Sam, sending a manuscript of a play written by his wife, Anna Mariska Fitch, a novelist who Sam described as:

 …an able romanticist of the ineffable school — I know no other name to apply to a school whose heroes are all dainty and all perfect [RI, Ch. LI].

See Aug. 2, 1863 for reference on Thomas Fitch. He asked Sam to:

February 20 Monday – In Hartford Sam referred the Feb. 10 letter from Willard B. Roberts to Franklin G. Whitmore, asking him to inform Roberts that he would have to put off any investment for “many months yet” [MTP].

February 20 Wednesday – International copyright legislation again failed in Congress. In Hartford, Sam sent his thanks to President Grover Cleveland for his support in the effort. Sam responded to Cleveland’s letter of Feb. 15.

February 20 Thursday – Orion Clemens finished his Feb. 19 letter to Sam:

Ma coughed nearly all night. Miss Craig soothed her to sleep three times — her longest nap was about an hour. To-day she is not coughing much, her appetite seems to have returned, and she is now (3:15 pm), up, dressed in her velvet, looking natural, and walking around in her room. It looks now as if she will get well [MTP].

Adolfo Ramasso wrote from Rome asking to translate ten of Sam’s sketches into Italian [MTP].

February 20 Friday – In Hartford Sam was immersed in work. On this day he began again what would become The American Claimant (in his Feb. 10 to Howells Sam disclosed he’d begun on Feb. 8, so he may have started over on this day.) He would write the book in only 71 days, finishing on May 2. He also was hard at work resurrecting the game that would become Mark Twain’s Memory Builder.

February 20? Friday – Sam wrote from Hartford to William Mackay Laffan. He enclosed an invitation from Lawrence Barrett for the 50th anniversary celebration of J.R. Osgood at Delmonico’s, Feb. 28, 7 PM. Sam wrote “(Private.)/Dear Laffan: /Who is this? Neither Mrs. Clemens nor I can” [MTLE 5: 22].

February 21 Saturday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Orion, sending a card for him to mail in case he no longer received the Atlantic Monthly. He had a cold “as heavy as ever” but the children were well. Sam related having a “pleasant dream about Molly last night, but an unpleasant one about myself—I thought I was baptized” [MTLE 5: 23].

February 21 Monday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Howells, describing at length the account of Hattie Gerhardt coming to their home, the trips to their apartment, and the ultimate decision to send them to Paris, where Karl would take lessons in his art. Sam agreed to support the Gerhardts for three years. “They will sail a week or ten days from now,” Sam wrote.

February 21 Tuesday – From Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Lieutenant Charles Wood at West Point. Wood had mentioned “Miss Terese Blackburn, a charming Kentucky schoolgirl,” who was anxious for a “genuine talk” with Mark Twain.

February 21 Thursday – From Twichell’s journal:

“Thursday M.T. and his Susy, also the artists Miss [Candace] Wheeler and her daughter Dora, dined at D.S’s [Dean Sage] and passed the night—a very pleasant party indeed” [Yale, copy at MTP].

George W. Cable wrote from Hotel Lafayette, Phila. to Sam that he’d found “Ambulina” [MTP]. Note: see Feb. 18 entry.

February 21 Saturday – Upon arriving in New York, Sam and Cable breakfasted with Ozias Pond and his wife, Nella.

February 21 Sunday – From Susy’s biography of her father, Papa:

Yesterday evening [Feb. 21] papa read to us the beginning of his new book, in manuscript, and we enjoyed it very much, it was founded on a New Englanders visit to England in the time of King Arthur and his round table [191-2].

February 21 Monday – In Hartford Sam wrote a one-liner to Ingersoll Lockwood.

Upon reflection, I am convinced that my size would render me too conspicuous for comfort [MTP].

Alphonse Loisette wrote to Sam from “The Loisettian School of Physiological Memory” enclosing his third “lesson.” Loisette mentioned he’d “just heard from Mr. Stanchfield. He says he has inspired the formation of two classes” [MTP]. Note: John B. Stanchfield.

February 21 Tuesday – Sam’s notebook carries a notice of a Kinsmen Club meeting at the New York home of Laurence Hutton, 229 W. 34th, on this day at 4 p.m. [MTNJ 3: 375]. Note: It is not known if Sam attended. Right above this entry is a note to write Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who was to publish a book with the Century Co. Sam likely wanted to make a pitch for Webster & Co.

February 21 Thursday – In Hartford Sam wrote a one-liner to Richard Watson Gilder of the Century, declining an invitation due to “an engagement away up North on that date” [MTP].

Orion Clemens finished his letter began Feb. 20 [MTP].

February 21 Friday – Webster & Co. typed a letter to Sam asking, since he knew Joseph Twichell, could he ask what regiment Yale professor Thomas R. Lounsbury was in during the Civil War, and what occupation he held between the war and his time at Yale. They explained that Lounsbury “always declines to give any information about himself,” and that they needed this for volume eleven of The Library of American Literature [MTP].

February 21 Saturday – In Hartford Sam wrote a short note of thanks to Thomas Bailey Aldrich for sending an inscribed book of his poems, The Sisters’ Tragedy, with Other Poems, Lyrical and Dramatic (1891) [MTP]. See Feb. entry.

February 22 Tuesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Hattie Gerhardt sending enclosed sheets for Karl Gerhardt to sign and return to Sam for use in sending a letter of credit for the Gerhardts at European banks. Sam wrote that he was going to Boston the next day and return Friday [MTP].

Western Union bill of Feb. 28 shows a message sent to New York, recipient unspecified.

February 22 Wednesday – In Hartford, Sam inscribed a portrait of himself to an unidentified person: “There isn’t any merit in doing a thing which it is a pleasure to do: & therefore none is claimed by / Ys Truly / SL. Clemens / (Mark Twain) / Hartford, Feb. 22, 1882” [MTP].

February 22 Thursday – In Hartford, Sam typed a letter to Charles Webster. Sam’s ex-attorney, Charles Perkins, had made an offer to reorganize the Kaolatype Company, and Sam wanted Webster to investigate whether to “knock the thing in the head.” More said about the alarm system, the batteries, the quitting bells, the alarm clock. Also Sam was concerned about a subscription for the magazine The Portfolio, An Artistic Periodical, London, to J.W.

February 22 Friday – Sam and party moved from Brooklyn to New York. From Twichell’s journal:

“Friday, after a charming morning in Brooklyn (M.T. sang Negro ‘spirituals’ at the piano, deliciously) we went to N.Y. and put up at the Gilsey House” [Yale, copy at MTP].

February 22 Monday – In Hartford Sam read some pages of CY to Livy and daughter Susy [Powers, MT A Life 506].

February 22 Wednesday – Mrs. B.F. Colburn wrote from Norwood, Mass. Asking Sam for a sketch of his life to use for the Ladies of the Universalist Church. “No,” Sam wrote on the envelope [MTP].